Cakes, baking and things I've been making…

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I’m very excited to have been invited to a number of events over the next month, which I will be telling you about before I go, then posting about anything interesting I find there afterwards.

The first of these is The Big Cake Show, which is being held at the Westpoint Exhibition Centre between 28th-30th March. It’s the biggest baking and cake show to ever have been held in South West England and features demonstrations from stars such as Phil Vickery, Mich Turner, Paul Hollywood and… MARY BERRY! *screams*

There are classroom style demonstrations where you can learn to perfect lots of varied skills such as scone and jam making, macaroons, cupcake and cake icing and much more. There are even special classes for kids!

To top it off, there are interactive competitions, stalls to buy some treats from, and an author’s corner where you can meet the stars and get your book signed.

Tickets are still available, and at only £12 for an adult day ticket they’re a complete bargain! Why not treat your mum for Mother’s Day?

Some people are chocolate cake people. Some people are prefer fruitier cakes. Me? I’m firmly in the chocolate camp.

Ok, a lemon drizzle (MB style) is nice every now and then, but give me a big fat slice of chocolate cake any day.

Every now and then, the occasion arises for something different, and I’m never quite sure what to make. Case in point, it was my Daddy-O’s birthday this week and I wanted to make him a birthday cake. I asked his wife for advice and she suggested an apple crumble. But that’s not special enough for a birthday cake is it?!

So I did my usual and scoured my recipe books and t’internet for some inspiration, and found a great recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery, which I have tweaked a little. Standard.

This is a cake. It is apple. And it’s crumble. It’s an Apple Crumble Cake!

Method
— Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin. Dust it with flour to prevent the cake from sticking.
— Make the crumble topping. Add all the crumble ingredients to a bowl, and using your hands, rub them together until they resemble breadcrumbs. You could also do this in a food processor, but be careful not to over-mix it otherwise it will be too fine. A few lumps here and there is a good thing. Set the crumble mixture aside for later.
— Now, make the cake batter. In a bowl, or stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until they are light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla essence and keep mixing until combined.
— Sift in the flour, baking powder and cinnamon, then add the milk. Mix again until the batter is smooth and creamy. Spoon the batter into the prepared cake tin.
— Peel, core and quarter the apples, then slice each quarter into thin slices. Starting at the outside of the tin, place the apples on top of the batter in a single layer, in circles.
— Lastly, spoon over the prepared crumble topping so that all the apple slices are covered. Sprinkle over a little extra sugar if you like.
— Bake for around 40 minutes, depending on your oven. The cake will be ready when the top is lovely and golden, and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

This cake is fantastic served warm, with a dollop of cream or a scoop of ice cream. It’s also great cold with a nice cup of tea. If you’re going to have it cold, make sure it’s fully cooled before taking it out of the tin, and serve it at room temperature.

Today I’m on BBC Radio Bristol talking about this blog and baking, and they asked me to bring in a cake that means something to me.

I found it really difficult to decide what to choose, as all of my cakes seem to conjure up some kind of memory for me. I finally narrowed it down though, and decided on a chocolate cake. Everybody loves chocolate cakes don’t they?! The recipe for this chocolate sponge is one I have used for many a birthday cake, from my friends, to children, and for work colleagues.

I wanted to spruce it up a bit though… I couldn’t just take in a standard chocolate sponge cake, even if it is a great recipe! So I took inspiration from Mary Berry (have you all been watching her new program?! AMAZING!).

Instead of two layers, this became a three layer cake. Instead of buttercream in between the layers, we now have cheesecake. YES, YOU READ THAT RIGHT. And instead of nothing covering it… We now have a ganache.

Don’t even think about how many calories are in this baby. Just don’t.

Method
— Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease and line 3 sandwich tins (if you only have two tins, split the recipe to make two cakes, then one).
— Sift the flour, bicarb and cocoa into a bowl and add the sugar. In a jug, measure out the milk, honey and oil, the add the eggs to the liquids and whisk to break up the yolks. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix on a medium speed (or by hand) for a minute until everything is fully combined. The batter will be quite runny.
— Pour into the prepared tins and bake for around 25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. The cakes should be springy and light, and coming away from the sides slightly. Leave the cakes to cool slightly for a minute or two, then run a sharp knife around the edges to loosen them, and remove them from the tins. Leave to cool on a cooling rack. They must be completely cool before you begin to decorate them.
— Next, make the ganache. Chop (or bash with a rolling pin) the dark chocolate. You don’t need to be too precious and chop it finely, just give it a good bash and it’ll be fine. The pieces should be smaller than normal squares of chocolate though. Place in a medium sized bowl.
— Warm the double cream on a low heat, stirring it to make sure it doesn’t form a skin. Just before it’s about to boil, pour the cream over the chocolate. Stir vigorously until it’s completely combined, all of the chocolate is melted and the ganache is starting to thicken. There will come a point where it looks like it’s gone horribly wrong, is splitting and curdling. Don’t worry! Keep stirring, and it will all come together, I promise.
— Once all the chocolate is melted, set it aside to firm up. I like to put mine in the fridge for half an hour (but no longer!). You want it soft enough that it can be spread easily but not so soft that it will fall down the sides.
— Now make the cheesecake layer. Melt the chocolate, either over a pan of boiling water or in a microwave. Set aside to cool. In a stand mixer (or by hand if you don’t have one), beat together the cream cheese and butter. Using full fat is important, as the lower fat version tends to go a bit runny.
— Sift in the icing sugar and mix until it’s all combined. When the chocolate is cooled, but not hard, add into the cheesecake mixture and mix well.
— Now it’s time to assemble the cake! Split the cheesecake mixture into two, and spread half on top of two of the sponges. Place one on top of the other, then the final sponge on top of the two.
— Spoon the ganache on top of the cake and use a palette knife to spread it all over the top. Ease it down the side of the cake and smooth it around so the whole cake has a layer of ganache covering it. The good thing about this cake is that it’s going to look and taste amazing – and the ganache is supposed to be a bit rough around the edges so don’t worry if it’s not completely perfect!

And that’s it! You can leave it as it is, or add decoration to it if you like. I have stated the ingredients above for the chocolate curls, but I will post a separate post on how to make these tomorrow.
I had a bit of gold shimmer spray in the cupboard so I gave it a little spray with that and it looked fab (you can pick those up in the home baking aisles of most supermarkets for a couple of pounds).

I have been asked recently whether I’m a “pro” blogger, or just a hobbyist.

I can tell you, 100%, for those of you who don’t know me, that I am definitely NOT a pro blogger. This is a hobby for me at the moment. I very much have a full time, normal job and fit blogging and baking in around my every day life.

As I’m not a professional, I occasionally get a bit wrapped up or excited about what I’m baking or cooking and forget to take photos, so I apologise for the occasions I where I publish posts without any or many photos. I guess if I’ve made something REALLY yummy, I scoff it down quick. And it’s only after I’ve eaten it, I may think – Ooops! That would have been a great recipe to share!

This is a Nigel Slater recipe, taken by me and tweaked. I’ve had this dish… Oooh… About ten times now, and LOVE LOVE LOVE it. I had some friends over for dinner last week and this is what I made for them. It’s sometimes difficult as a veggie to cook for meat eaters, as you’re always feeling like you’re doing them out of what they would consider a “proper” meal.

This is no such dish. This is a caramelised onion-y, strong tasting mustardy dish of fabulousness. A grating of cheese and a hunk of fresh, crusty bread is all it needs to complete it.

Here it is – there are only “before” pictures of the ingredients I’m afraid – one of the times I unfortunately got a bit over-excited about tucking in!

Incidentally, I tweeted Nigel Slater that I’d made this and it was delicious, and he replied with a lovely tweet – what a nice bloke!

This will serve 3 greedy people or 4 normal. There were only 3 of us 😀

Ingredients

1 pack (6) Linda McCartney veggie sausages

3 tbsp olive oil

2 1/2 large onions

300g wholewheat spaghetti

150ml vegetable stock

2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

1 tbsp whole grain mustard

Method

— Slice the onions into thin rings, and chop the sausages into chunks, about 2cm wide each. Heat the oil, then add the onions and sausages and fry until the onions start to soften.

— At this point, bring a pan of water to the boil and put the pasta in to start cooking. I won’t tell you how to cook pasta; I’m sure you know and if you don’t then you can google it elsewhere!

— Keep going with the sausages and onions for a good 15-20 minutes. After this amount of time, the onions should be golden and starting to caramelise, sticking slightly to the bottom, and, dare I say it, burning a little. It’s fine, go with it. Add the stock, mustard and parsley and give it a stir, scraping up all the caramelised bits from the bottom of the pan.

— Add the cooked, drained pasta, mix everything in, and serve into bowls. Grate over some cheddar, parmesean, or whatever cheese you like (I know Parmesean isn’t vegetarian, so use whatever cheese you prefer!).

I’m writing this blog post whilst I prepare myself a decidedly normal evening meal of pasta and pesto. How very un-food-bloggery!! I’m sure I’m not alone in loving this easy peasy supper? We all need a night off once in a while. I did cast my eye over a recipe for a pistachio pesto though… I have GOT to give this a try soon and will be sure to share the recipe as soon as I do.

Anyway. There’s something about mini cake bites, isn’t there? The fact that you can fit them into your mouth in one go means that you feel justified in eating more of them than you normally would! I know I do… But when they taste this good and look as cute as these do, why not?!

I got the inspiration for this recipe from a favourite blog of mine, Hannahhotcakes. I saw her blog about mini doughnuts a while ago and knew I wanted to give them a try. You can visit Hannah’s blog here.

These are essentially mini cake bites in the shape of doughnuts – these silicone doughnut shaped moulds are everywhere at the moment and are very cheap to buy and easy to use. One word of warning though – my advice would be not to buy one too cheaply. I bought mine from Amazon for a fiver here, and it was OK, but the doughnuts didn’t come out very smoothly after baking. I tried a second batch and sprinkled a light dusting of flour into the moulds before putting the batter in, which did help slightly, but I think if you’re going to buy one, spend a little more and get a better quality mould. Lakeland have a great version available, if you click on the Lakleand banner below it’ll take you to their site and you can see for yourself. (*NOTE – This is not sponsored, I just love their stuff!*)

This recipe will make around 40 mini doughut cake bites. This would be a great recipe to make with children as they’re fun to make, decorate and eat.

Ingredients

110g self raising flour

110g caster sugar

110g butter or Stork, softened

2 large eggs

1 tsp baking powder

2 heaped tbsp cocoa powder

150g milk chocolate

Sprinkles to decorate

Method

— Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Dust your silicone mould lightly with flour and shake off the excess. Place it on a baking tray to support it.

— Add to a bowl all ingredients except the milk chocolate and sprinkles, and combine until the batter is smooth. You can do this by hand, or in a stand mixer like my KitchenAid.

— Fill the moulds with the batter. You could use a spoon, but I piped mine for a better finish, using a large round piping nozzle. Bake in the oven for around 14 minutes, then remove and leave to cool completely. Don’t even attempt to take your doughnuts out of the mould until they are cold!

— Lay a piece of baking paper on a tray or plate. Melt the milk chocolate and dip the tops of each doughnut bite into the chocolate to coat it. Place it on the baking tray and decorate with the sprinkles. Leave for half an hour for the chocolate to set… If you can wait that long!

Today is the day of my very first radio appearance about Eat Sleep Bake Repeat. I’ve been very excited about it, and nervous at the same time. They’ve asked me to bring in something which I’ve baked to chat about. That, in itself, isn’t a problem, but what HAS been a problem is deciding what to take in!!

I’ve trialled lots of recipes in the past few weeks, some which have turned out great and will be making an appearance on a blog near you very soon… And others… Not so much. I’m lucky that my selfless colleagues will eat whatever I put in front of them, even if it’s not my greatest work.

Anyway, after trying lots of ideas out, I decided to take along my old faithful Oreo Truffles (have a look in the December archive for the post on them). This is the recipe I get asked for most so I guess it was a bit of a no-brainer!

However, these are no-bake so I thought I’d also take one of my favourite, traditional cakes, the Carrot Cake, and turn them into cupcakes. Yum!

The recipe has a great, spicy flavour, with a hint of orange, and contains chopped walnuts and sultanas.

I’ve topped them with my favourite white chocolate buttercream frosting, with a sprinkling of walnuts, yum.

Ingredients

For the cake

50g sultanas

Juice and zest of 1 orange

150ml sunflower oil

2 large eggs

140g light brown sugar

170g self raising flour

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

140g grated carrots

50g walnuts, chopped

For the frosting

110g unsalted softened butter

250g icing sugar, sifted

150g white chocolate, melted

Method

— First thing’s first. Be prepared! Grate the zest of your orange into a bowl, and add the sultanas and orange juice. Leave to soak for as long as you can (preferably overnight but don’t fret – even if you can only soak them for an hour it’s better than nothing!).

— Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Line a muffin tray with 12 cupcake cases.
— In a large bowl, sift the flour and bicarb into a bowl, and add the sugar and spices. Give it a stir. In a jug, whisk the eggs and oil, then pour into the dry ingredients. Add the grated carrots and walnuts and mix until fully combined.

— Spoon the mixture into your cupcake cases, filling them to between two thirds and three quarters full.

— Bake for around 22 minutes. The exact time will depend on your oven – keep an eye on the cupcakes, and remove when the tops are golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool completely.

— For the frosting, use your stand mixer or electric whisk to beat together the butter and half of the icing sugar. Once it’s incorporated, add in the rest of the sugar. Remember to cover the bowl with tea towel to avoid a snow storm! Pour in the melted chocolate and leave the machine on a medium speed for 2-3 minutes until it’s light and creamy. Add a little milk if it’s too dry and a little more sugar if it’s too runny.

In my That Was The Week That Was post on Sunday I mentioned that I had some exciting news coming up… And it’s time to share it with you!

Recently, Eat Sleep Bake Repeat has been getting a lot of interest from the media and press. I’m very lucky to have been invited to a number of radio stations to talk about the blog. My first appearance is going to be on Wednesday 5th March at 12pm on BCFM 93.2 (a local Bristol radio station). I’ll be baking something delicious to take along and chat about, and the recipe will be posted that day. I’m still open to ideas as for what to take in – feel free to give me any of your suggestions!

I’m also very pleased to announce that I’ll be attending the Cake International Show at the ExCel Centre in London, which is running from 10th April – 12th April 2014.

They’ve invited me along as a blogger to visit the event, and… drumroll… Have offered me 5 pairs of tickets to give away to my lovely readers!

Cake International is a Sugarcraft, cake decorating and baking show. There are exhibitions, demonstrations and tips from renowned experts such as Mich Turner, Claire Bowman and Annabelle Jane, to mention a few. You can learn lot of new and exciting skills and even enter your own creations into competitions! It’s perfect for both proessfionals and home bakers alike – there really is something for everyone whether you’re already an established baker or you’re just looking for more ideas.

All you need to do to win the tickets is be following this blog, follow me on Twitter at @KimberleyParr and comment on this post to tell me which day you’d like to attend. It’s THAT easy! Remember to include your email address in the comment post.